An Elephant and her guard dog.
This is 60-yr old Peggy, and 46-yr old Booper who live at the Riddle Elephant Sanctuary. This #hiddengem in #arkansas is currently home to 2 Asian former circus performers. It was once home to 13 former circus and zoo elephants and some of which were born on the 370-acre ranch. They open the gates to tourists on the first Saturday of the month. During that one day, they coral the elephants in nearby enclosures to allow the caregivers to showcase them. Every other day, after breakfast and a bath, they are free to roam the property. The staff is very knowledgeable and provided a lot of insight into the lives of these majestic animals and the surprising good that well-meaning circus’ did and still do for these animals.

When we are born we love without fear, we live without fear and we trust without fear ✨ Then life happens - and things change. We have to unlearn all of the fear we’ve been taught and learn to love every aspect of our lives - because that’s what life is about - love 💕 Self-love - because when we vibrate on a frequency of love the universe matches that and then all of a sudden we love everything going on outside of us too ✨ Recently I’ve been struggling with how privileged I am in this life and although I help others with my work I fear it won’t be enough - but that fear only prevents me from making it enough 💁🏼‍♀️ What is enough anyway? Today I have had a major shift in lots of ways and I’ve come to understand the importance of staying in love and that’s what my 2019 is going to involve - more love and a lot more light 💫 sending lots of love to you and a picture of an elephant because I love elephants 🐘
#selflove#light#love#bethelight

Today we visited Phuket Elephant Sanctuary, one of the top places in Thailand to see Asian elephants. This sanctuary purchases elephants - who would otherwise be killed - when they go lame or get too old for work in logging or tourism. Here, there are 8 elephants on 30 acres. The elephants are given a proper diet, pools for baths, and mud to play in.
Proper treatment of elephants is a big problem here. In some of the touristy areas, elephants are chained up on the side of the road. There's very little regulation of the treatment of these big, smart animals. About half of the Asian elephants worldwide are in captivity, working. We learned a lot today and enjoyed saying hello and supporting proper care.
@phuketelephantsanctuary #thailand#asianelephant#elephant#phuketelephantsanctuary#elephantsanctuary#gltlove#femaletravelbloggers#responsibletravel

Let’s get TRUNK.
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Hanging out with these gentle giants was an absolute blessing. The sanctuary rescues working elephants from the logging and tourism industries, although I wasn’t 100% comfortable with the idea of groups of tourists constantly being thrust upon the nellies, at least there was ZERO use of hooks/chains or forced walks/riding. Ideally, this kinda thing would be less accessible to discourage mass tourism but hey that’s just my POV. Can’t be too much of a hypocrite as I did LOVE every second with these beautiful souls (both animal and human) #🐘#elephant#chiangmai#elephantsanctuary

Searching the hashtag #elephantsantuary leads to endless photos of tourists riding them / dangling on them for photo ops 🛑 Since we are talking about our elephant friends. Let’s take a minute to point out to anyone who thinks they visited a “sanctuary” and posted pictures riding them.
If you rescue something.. you don’t continue to make it do what it was doing before. You free it in every sense...these animals are magnificent and they are NOT ours to use. #elephantrides#elephantsanctuary#elephant🐘